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CORPORATE CRIMEFIGHTERS OF AMERICA -- Thursday, December 04, 2003 PLEASE PAY FOR THIS SUBSCRIPTION TO SUPPORT OUR CAUSE. ADDRESS AT BOTTOM. Network with Others at our BBS: http://www.quicktopic.com/24/H/xCbDfhUX5Jyfy ====================================================== UNBELIEVABLE NASHVILLE, Tenn., Jul 1, 2003 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Three experienced employee benefits executives have formed a new national firm which will assist companies and their employee benefit advisors with enrollment strategies, plan design, support services and communication of benefits at the worksite. The firm, Benefit Partners of America, LLC, will specialize in providing a balanced program of employer- and employee-paid insurance products **including executive benefits**. J. Harold Chandler, who was previously Chairman, President and CEO of UnumProvident Corporation, will serve as Chairman and CEO of the new company. In his role, he will be concentrating on both internal and external growth strategies. [Another UNUM exec will also be signing on] Webmaster's comments: Can you believe it? The third worst CEO in America, who tanked his company's stock about 600% and left in a cloud of wrongdoing, is starting Another insurance company. These bastards have no shame at all. Good Lord, anyone dumb enough to invest in J. Harold again deserves to lose their house. Well, they left a phone no, anyway: Greg Voges or Brad Wier or Harold Chandler, +1-615-327-0903, ====================================================== HOW RESERVE CHEATING IS DONE claim liabilities. This money is referred to as "reserves" which for the disability insurer is equal to 100% of the potential future value of claims. (In theory) When a claim comes into UNUMP, it is "marked up" on BAS, the UMUMP payment system. At that time the system pulls a reserve into the payment system. UNUMP underwriting incorporates historical actuarial informtion into the actual $ amount, however, the figure is generally close to 100% of the future value of the monthly indemnity. When the claim is actually approved, there is an "uptake" of the insurance reserves (A Reserve Loss--or, money which is now unavailable for cashflow, salaries, operating expenses etc.) When a claim is denied we have a "reserve gain" or, immediate contribution to profit. UNUMP sets LAR's (Liability acceptance rate) at 70% or below. So it knows when setting financial targets it will pay only 70% of claims, and the processess surrounding the targets are put in place to "make it happen." This is UNUMP's profit area--70% of LAR. Above this target, you have decreasing profits, of course, so when the LAR's begin to creep up, we saw increasing harassment on the floor to deny more claims. After 9/11, UNUMP publicized and LAR rate of 98%. You CANNOT make a profit approving claims at the 98% rate for long. Remember, the breakeven profit margin is 70% or below. In addition, UNUMP has claims processes in place which deliberately manipulate the insurance reserves. i.e. not paying additional contract riders such as COLA, Income Protection Riders, Disability Plus Riders, Indexing etc. If you don't code additional benefits, then the reserve is artifically kept lower than it should be. UNUMP also uses "Reservation of Rights" in their payment of benefits to keep reserves low when they have the liability of the full benefit for a claim. The ERD's (Expected Dates of Recovery) were at one time incorporated into the reserve figures which again distorted the true future liability of the claim. The company may not spend money placed in reserves. UNUM's "recovery plan" as publicized here in the Portland Press Herald was to ADD money to the reserves since the company was found to be severely "under reserved as required by law." If UNUM's reserves decreased by 152 M it was as a result of keeping the LAR's low by denying more claims, and cutting costs. UNUM has consistently cut costs by reduction of benefits and operating expenses since the merger. manipulation of reserves is indeed illegal, but it is done mostly through the claims process and the manner in which claims are handled. Webmaster's comments: This doesn't only apply to UNUM. Many insurers cheat on their reserves. ====================================================== UNUM DOWNGRADED BADLY 12/2/03 Dow Jones. Shares of UnumProvident corp. fell as much as 7% Tuesday after Merril Lynch raised valuation concerns based on the price Hartford Financial Sevices Group Inc. agreed Monday to pay for the businesses of CNA Financial. Webmaster's note: Analysts almost Never issue a Sell warning. They hate to do that, especially now that the market is going up. More bad news about UNUM forthcoming. Stay tuned for an Extra Edition soon ;') ====================================================== EMPLOYERS MAY BE LIABLE FOR INSURER CRIMES The story of Thomas P. Davis is one that every worker fears--and employers think they prepare for--but that often comes without a happy ending. After more than a decade of paperwork, lawyers, medical tests and heartache, his ordeal is far from over. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of lawsuits are said to be in the pipeline against Chattanooga-based UnumProvident, involving scores of injured workers like Davis. They allege that the long-term disability insurer wrongfully denied or terminated their benefits to boost profits. So far, workforce management executives have been watching closely from the sidelines. But employers may be drawn into the highly contentious and often emotionally charged legal battleground that is developing around UnumProvident, the nation's largest disability insurer. Plaintiffs' attorney Raymond Bourhis of San Francisco, who has handled several high-profile individual cases against the company, says class-action lawsuits alleging violations of the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act may draw in employers like GlaxoSmithKline. "I predict there are going to be a huge number of lawsuits filed against employers, as well as insurance companies, alleging conspiracy and collusion to deprive ERISA-preempted workers' protections under state law," Bourhis says. "For a long time, insurance companies probably told their clients you can't be sued, don't worry about it. I've got bad news. You can be sued and you should worry about it." Plaintiffs' attorneys view class-action suits as an alternative to lawsuits filed by individual clients. Suits by individuals have resulted in headline-grabbing awards as high as $84 million, but they are an option only for the self-employed or professionals, such as physicians, who are not covered by group policies. Workers covered by group policies have little recourse because ERISA limits their legal rights, such as the right to a jury trial or compensatory or punitive damages allowed in cases brought by injured workers with individual policies. Lawyers shy away from defending workers covered by ERISA because they say the limited damages aren't enough to compensate them for the time and expense each case takes. Class-action lawsuits, in which thousands of injured workers are represented in one suit, are a different matter. ====================================================== REQUIRED READING FOR ALL AMERICANS A New Kind Of Poverty Anna Quindlen Newsweek America is a country that now sits atop the precarious latticework of myth. It is the myth that working people can support their families Winter flits in and out of New York City in the late fall, hitching a ride on the wind that whips the Hudson River. One cold morning not long ago, just as day was breaking, six men began to shift beneath their blankets under a stone arch up a rise from the water. In the shadow of the newest castle-in-the-air skyscraper midwifed by the Baron Trump, they gathered their possessions. An hour later they had vanished, an urban mirage. There's a new kind of homelessness in the city, and a new kind of hunger, and a new kind of need and humiliation, but it has managed to stay as invisible as those sleepers were by sunup. "What we're seeing are many more working families on the brink of eviction," says Mary Brosnahan, who runs the Coalition for the Homeless. "They fall behind on the rent, and that's it, they're on the street." Adds Julia Erickson, the executive director of City Harvest, which distributes food to soup kitchens and food pantries, "Look at the Rescue Mission on Lafayette Street. They used to feed single men, often substance abusers, homeless. Now you go in and there are bike messengers, clerks, deli workers, dishwashers, people who work on cleaning crews. Soup kitchens have been buying booster seats and highchairs. You never used to see young kids at soup kitchens." America is a country that now sits atop the precarious latticework of myth. It is the myth that work provides rewards, that working people can support their families. It's a myth that has become so divorced from reality that it might as well begin with the words "Once upon a time." According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1.6 million New Yorkers, or the equivalent of the population of Philadelphia, suffer from "food insecurity," which is a fancy way of saying they don't have enough to eat. Some are the people who come in at night and clean those skyscrapers that glitter along the river. Some pour coffee and take care of the aged parents of the people who live in those buildings. The American Dream for the well-to-do grows from the bowed backs of the working poor, who too often have to choose between groceries and rent. Even if you've never been to the Rescue Mission, all the evidence for this is in a damning new book called "The Betrayal of Work" by Beth Shulman, a book that should be required reading for every presidential candidate and member of Congress. According to Shulman, even in the go-go '90s one out of every four American workers made less than $8.70 an hour, an income equal to the government's poverty level for a family of four. Many, if not most, of these workers have no health care, sick pay or retirement provisions. We salve our consciences, Shulman writes, by describing these people as "low skilled," as though they're not important or intelligent enough to deserve more. But low-skilled workers today are better educated than ever before, and they constitute the linchpin of American industry. When politicians crow that happy days are here again because jobs are on the rise, it's these jobs they're really talking about. Five of the 10 occupations expected to grow big in the next decade are in the lowest-paying job groups. And before we sit back and decide that that's just the way it is, it's instructive to consider the rest of the world. While the bottom 10 percent of American workers earn just 37 percent of our median wage, according to Shulman, their counterparts in other industrialized countries earn upwards of 60 percent. And those are countries that provide health care and child care, which cuts the economic pinch considerably. In America we console ourselves with the bootstrap myth, that anyone can rise, even those who work two jobs and still have to visit food pantries to feed their families. It is a beloved myth now more than ever, because the working poor have become ever more unsympathetic. Almost 40 years ago, when Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty, a family with a car and a Dutch Colonial in the suburbs felt prosperous and, in the face of the president's call to action, magnanimous. Poverty seemed far away, in the shanties of the South or the worst pockets of urban blight. Today that same family may well feel impoverished, overwhelmed by credit-card debt, a second mortgage and the cost of the stuff that has become the backbone of American life. When the middle class feels poor, the poor have little chance for change, or even recognition. Does anyone think twice about the woman who turns down the spread on the hotel bed? A living wage, affordable health care and housing, the bedrock understanding that it's morally wrong to prosper through the casual exploitation of those who make your prosperity possible. It's a tall order, I suppose. The lucky thing for many Americans is that they don't even have to see or think about it. The office hallways get mopped somehow, the shelves get stocked at the stores. And on Thanksgiving Day, children will be pushed up to the table for a free meal in a church basement or a soup kitchen, with the understanding that that is the point of the holiday-a day of plenty in a life of want. ====================================================== UNUM STILL MANIPULATING RESERVES From their BBS: During the ordinary course of business for past 16 Quarters on a Quarter over Quarter basis reserves incrementally increased. And when they were increased sustantially it was accounted for as a extraordinary one time loss, that did not affect the operating earnings of the company. But when the reserves decrease, whch is truly anomaly why no explanation, or extaordinary accounting? For Q3 2003 UNUM reported an operating profit of .42 per share. It was easy for the Company to create this report by simply using dollars that they placed into reserves in Q1 in order to pay benefit expenses that would otherwise have caused the company to have shown a loss or lower operating earnings. Basically it appears as if the management knowingly directed the capital they raised into earnings in the following three step process. 1. Q1 Add 454 MIL to reserves from equity. 2. Q2 Replace that equity with the new capital. 3. Q3 Pay operating expenses out of the same reserves that were added in Q1. 4. Net result is a carefully planned appearance of operating earnings designed mainly to support stock price and create a the illusion of better statutory earnings for the ratings decision makers. How else do you explain the 152M reduction in reserves for this earnings period? IMO any plan designed to inflate earnings is a crime. ====================================================== HOW TO TOTALLY DESTROY YOUR MIND ;') From - The Age of Missing Information by Bill McKibben Imagine a day hundreds, or even thousands, of hours long. Then imagine, if you will, spending that entire day watching television. For Bill McKibben, that day was May 3rd, 1990, a day on which the Fairfax Virginia cable system offered roughly 2,000 hours worth of programming on 93 channels. McKibben managed to collect this material, and then he watched it--all of it. "I spent eight-hour days for many months watching cartoons and soap operas and shopping channels and televangelists, with predictable mood-altering effect. I'll never do anything quite so daft again." ====================================================== IF YOU'RE HONEST, GET OUT OF HERE! Ex-employee claims insurer forced him out By EDWARD D. MURPHY, Portland Press Herald Writer A former employee of UnumProvident has sued the company, claiming that he was forced to resign after complaining about what he says were unethical or illegal policies for handling disability claims. Daniel Donatelli's lawsuit, filed Tuesday, asks for back pay and compensation, as well as punitive damages. Asked about the matter at a press conference in Portland, Thomas Watjen, UnumProvident's president and chief executive officer, said he was unaware of the lawsuit. Other company officials said UnumProvident had just received the lawsuit and would have no comment until the company's lawyers had a chance to review it. The insurer has denied previous allegations - made in court filings in other states and through the news media - that its claims-handling practices are improper. Speaking in a general context Tuesday, Watjen said he will work to improve the company's image by contesting lawsuits that have questioned the company's core service of handling disability claims. He said a marketing campaign is part of the effort. He also said UnumProvident has taken steps to change practices that, while fair, might have given the impression that they were tilted against claimants. He cited as an example changes to the appeals process for denied claims. Donatelli said he was a customer-care specialist in a UnumProvident unit in Portland in early 2000 when he complained that he was being pressured to take part "in business practices that were unethical and violated legal rules for disability insurance providers." Donatelli asked to be transferred, and his work in a new unit was praised until a supervisor learned why he had transferred from the previous department, according to the lawsuit. After that, Donatelli's supervisor began to criticize his performance. Eventually, Donatelli was put on probation and told that he would probably be fired at the end of the 60-day period, the lawsuit contends. The company denied Donatelli's request to be transferred, so he resigned, the lawsuit said. "He hasn't been able to get a job in the insurance industry since this happened," said Donatelli's lawyer, Sumner Lipman. Donatelli also alleges that he was defamed by the company and Thomas A.H. White, a spokesman at UnumProvident's headquarters in Chattanooga, Tenn. According to Lipman, the company defamed Donatelli in a letter to the television program "60 Minutes." Lipman said UnumProvident learned that the program, which was preparing a piece on allegations that UnumProvident denies valid disability claims to improve profits, planned to talk to Donatelli. In a letter, White told the show's producers that Donatelli wasn't credible, Lipman said. Staff Writer Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at: emurphy@pressherald.com ====================================================== JUST LIKE ALLSTATE - EVEN CHEATING THEIR OWN BROKERS Webmaster's note: Speaking of Allstate, I've gathered together a lot of news and will be posting sooner or later. However, since UNUM is about to keel over and more bad news is coming, I am focusing on them right now: Ruling: Insurer was wrong to alter commission scale Sheri Qualters Journal Staff The Massachusetts Superior Court recently ruled that an insurance company violated the state's Consumer Protection Act and engaged in unfair business practices by changing brokers' commissions without forewarning. The case is one to watch for companies in any industry that works with commissioned workers, experts said. In Eldridge v. Provident Companies Inc., justice Daniel Toomey ordered that the plaintiffs are eligible for double damages and attorneys' fees. The case originally cited Worcester-based Paul Revere Corp., but after multiple mergers, the company is now UnumProvident Corp. of Chattanooga, Tenn. Double damages could be in the $6 million to $8 million range, but much depends on the method the judge uses to determine damages, said Glenn Felton, UnumProvident's vice president and assistant general counsel. The plaintiffs' attorney, Michael Lange, a partner at Boston-based Berman DeValerio Pease Tabacco Burt & Pucillo, would not speculate about the damages, saying it's "inappropriate to throw out numbers" prior to a court hearing scheduled for December. Noting that a jury trial found that the company's decision to change its commission structure did not violate its contract, Felton said UnumProvident would appeal the Massachusetts Superior Court decision. "There were the same issues and same witnesses - nothing's changed," Felton said. According to court papers, Paul Revere Corp. was under a financial strain during the time it was negotiating its acquisition by the Provident Companies in late 1994. The company then proposed changes in its broker commission schedule that would result in $4 million in cash-flow savings during the first year and $4.7 million during the second. At issue is the commission for when customers exercise disability options on insurance policies. Prior to 1995, brokers earned a first-year rate of 50 percent, followed by nine years of 5 percent commissions for each renewal. After the change, brokers earned 10 percent for each year of renewal. The Superior Court decision against Provident is "simply an application of a long-standing principle under the consumer-protection act, said Berman DeValerio's Lange. Lange said the statute is "meant to be broad" and cover conduct not necessarily picked up by contract law. "The message that companies (should) take away is, when you strike a bargain with your sales force, you have to stick with it - you can't change the rules," said Lange. But Judith Malone, a partner and chairwoman of the employment and labor department at Palmer & Dodge LLP, said the judge's decision "seems to expand the notion of an unfair and deceptive practice." "Someone could be acting within the scope of a contract, not breaching (it), and still be deemed to have been engaged in immoral, unethical and unscrupulous conduct," Malone said. ====================================================== SHREDDING AND DELETING Court Criticizes Defendant for Failing to Preserve Archival Data Keir v. UnumProvident, 2003 WL 21997747 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 22, 2003). In an ERISA class action suit, the Plaintiffs sought an order from the court directing Defendant to preserve all electronic evidence relevant to the matter. After noting that the Defendant "already had a duty to preserve any tapes containing emails as of the date litigation commenced," the court ordered the Defendant to preserve all relevant electronic data and to specifically preserve six days of email records which were contained on backup tapes and hard drives. Instead of preserving all existing backups, or conducting a full tape email backup, the Defendant's technical staff decided to implement a special snapshot backup which would only preserve emails on the system as of the day or days the snapshot was taken. In evaluating Defendant's conduct with respect to the preservation order, the court stated that "UnumProvident had ample time in the weeks before the December 27 [preservation] Order was signed to consult with its IT Department and with IBM to inform itself about the technological issues relevant to the preservation of electronic data so that it could bring accurate information to the negotiations of the preservation order and the conferences with the Court in which the December 27 Order was shaped, and comply promptly with the Order after it was issued." The court found the Defendant's failure to preserve was unintentional and criticized the Defendant's poor compliance with the preservation order. The court recommended that further action be taken to determine the feasibility of retrieving the lost data and the extent of prejudice to the Plaintiffs in order for the court to fashion a remedy for the Plaintiffs. ====================================================== OUR DISGRACEFUL MEDICAL SYSTEM (These are a few letters from another board) My uncle is dying and my aunt is being harassed by slimeball collectors! As many of you already know, my uncle suffered a recurrence of his cancer that he was supposedly "cured" from seven years ago, and this time it's much worse and the prognosis is very bad. He's been dealing with chemo and radiation and that whole gauntlet, which leaves him with barely the strength to move, let alone work. On those days that he is able to work, he almost never makes it through the whole day (he's 54). My aunt works full-time in addition to caring for him, which is, understandably, starting to take a physical and emotional toll on her. She has also had to fight almost daily with his goddamn, low-life, pond-scum, bottom-feeding, inhuman, inhumane, greedy, selfish, fucking blood-sucking HMO, whose employees and management can't seem to get it through their heads that this is CANCER they are dealing with, and not a goddamned cold or hangnail. She is ALWAYS fighting with them to cover something, or to approve a treatment, or to at least partially cover something. She is terrified that the bills will become too much for them and they will have to sell the house, cash in pensions, or other drastic steps, just to keep the hospital CEO's and the doctors living in the style to which they're obviously accustomed. And when she does take him in for a treatment, she first has to deal with the gatekeepers at the hospital, whose only concern is whether or not the treatment is approved and will be at least partially covered, and that she has the resources to cover the rest. Here both of them should be focusing ONLY on his health and comfort, and they have to deal with these goddamn fucksticks who only care about money and, in the case of the HMO, how they can get out of paying any money. Never mind that most of the HMO gatekeepers not only do not have anything resembling a medical degree, but they will also never have to deal with this kind of shit themselves, since they're usually either fully covered or have the resources to cover whatever isn't paid. And now she's getting bombarded with harassing calls from the goddamned hospital's fucking collection agency, as well as the agencies for the greedy, blood-sucking, doctors, labs, etc., who seem to have forgotten the true purpose and meaning of their profession. She gets bothered at work, at home, at all hours of the day and night. She knows her rights under the Fair Debt Collection Act, and I've helped her write letters demanding that they contact her by mail only and no longer by phone. By law, they must comply with such written requests. They do comply, but it's like the old Whack-a-Mole game, no sooner do you get rid of one than another one pops up to take its place. She finally lost it at one and screamed that her husband was dying and she didn't give a fuck whether or not the damn fucking doctor and hospital got one more cent, and the collector got all huffy and haughty, telling her that the docs and hospitals have expenses too and if people are really sick, that's not their problem!!!!!! WTF???? These people make me physically ill, how the fuck they can sleep at night knowing they're making tons of money off of the misery and misfortune of others, particularly when it comes to medical debt, is completely beyond my comprehension. Why the fuck we can't have universal, comprehensive coverage like every other industrialized nation in the world is also completely beyond me. And I see it getting much worse, not better. I've had to fend off the medical collectors myself, and these people are vicious and ruthless. They make you feel like shit, like the lowest of the low, like you're a criminal because you're either uninsured or your insurance won't pay everything. They make it seem like the world will end if you don't pay every single cent RIGHT NOW, no matter how much it is. Guess the docs and hospital CEO's have to make their BMW payments ... I even read a report recently where a business consultant whose specialty was medical issues released an opinion calling uninsured patients "cash cows" because they can be charged so much more, and urging hospitals to be even MORE aggressive in collecting the bills, even if it meant foreclosures. Isn't that nice? I had to read that twice before I could believe it. .... I live in Canada and medical bills don't exist here. You have the largest richest economy on earth,something is really wrong with the system. .... You are right about that... as an expat American the only insurance I pay for is International protection while I am out of the country (read in the U.S.). That amounts to about $100 per year. 85% of all prescriptions are payed and this includes over the counter medications which have a Dr.'s prescription. My daughter had the flu last week and I paid about 7$ for medications. Webmaster's comments: What a disgrace that out of all civilized nations, the wealthiest nation has no medical care system. Of course, if we had such a system the crooked insurers couldn't get rich as thieving middlemen, which is why they spent millions brainwashing our stupid public into having their crooked congressmen vote against it. From "Only Child" by Andrew Vachss, published in 2002: "This is an ugly country to be poor in. Worse if you're sick. And if you're old, you can ratchet that up a few notches more." ====================================================== Webmaster's note: This is an older piece, but just think. What if you or I had Defrauded the government of millions of dollars? The FBI would be carting us off in handcuffs, and they would sell our home while we languished in Federal prison. But if an insurer steals that much, no one is ever punished. As I've noted often, insurers have been repeatedly caught committing forgery in order to "change" a policy, yet I have Never heard of anyone going to jail for it. CHEATING MEDICARE UNUMPROVIDENT settled for 27,000,000.00 Corporate Fraud and Prosecution http://www.law.emory.edu/fedcircuit/mar96/95-5122.html Stinson, a law firm, while representing an accident victim in his dealings with the Provident Life and Accident Insurance Co. (UNUMPROVIDENT - UNM), learned of assertedly improper practices in UNUMPROVIDENT's Medicare billing practices. Stinson brought a qui tam action under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. ?§ 2729-33, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which court transferred the action to the Eastern District of Tennessee. TheTennessee district court dismissed the complaint, finding that Stinson was not the original source of the information about UNUMPROVIDENT, as required by the statute. 31 U.S.C. ?§ 3730(e)(4). Stinson appealed to the Sixth Circuit. While the appeal was pending Stinson and UNUMPROVIDENT settled for a sum apparently related to Stinson's legal costs. The settlement was approved by the district court, to which the case was remanded for the purpose. The United States had declined to intervene in Stinson's qui tam action. Instead, the government sued UNUMPROVIDENT separately. UNUMPROVIDENT and the United States eventually settled for approximately $27,000,000.00 ... ====================================================== THE PIGS IN THE POKE Just a quickie in case you are thinking of buying them. Paul Revere and Colonial Life are also a part of UNUM Provident. ====================================================== HOW MANY SUITS? I'm trying to get a figure on how many suits are against UNUM, but it's difficult. The state DOIs hide their information on behalf of the insurance industry, and the Federal PACER system is fragmented, plus they charge by the page. (Beats me how we pay for the judicial system with our taxes then have to pay again to get information out of them. But it's all designed to make sure the well-heeled are the only ones who can find stuff out - and even then it's still difficult. Combined with gag orders and Vacatur, no one can show that insurance is America's largest ongoing criminal enterprise, even though it is.) ====================================================== WORKER'S COMPENSATION - A MASSIVE FRAUD ON THE PEOPLE Dear Jim, Thanks for your good wishes. I am trying to enjoy my day also. I just lost my case and my attorney. Now I have until the 4th of Dec. to File a Motion for Reconsideration or Appeal. I have been on this emotional roller coaster for 9 years. I wrote The Theft of Dignity three years ago. You can read it on Bob Dugan's site at: www.workerscompensationinsurance.com I wish I had solutions, but I have been fighting an uphill battle. The WC system of injustice rallies on, and their poor unfortunate victims become the new generation of the downtrodden. But I am taking a break, just for today, of the reality. Take care and enjoy your day. :) Best wishes, *+*+*+*+*+ MICHELLE *+*+*+*+*+ Webmaster's note: Say a prayer for Michelle and visit her story on the site above. It's a shame when a corrupt insurer convinces a stupid or corrupt appellate judge to erroneously rule in their favor. Juries of honest people usually get it right, but the appellate level is full of judges who get free vacations and $5,000 "speaking" fees from insurers. Judicial corruption and pro-corporate partiality is the scandal of America. ====================================================== ERISA LAWYERS From: JPizzaGirl@aol.com <JPizzaGirl@aol.com> To: response@zinester.com <response@zinester.com> the CFIDS.com site (Chronic fatigue) has a list of attorneys who will litigate ERISA long term disability cases. Webmaster's note: By the way, please don't Reply to this newsletter. Write me at cybervigil@earthlink.net Replies to this newsletter go into zombie space and I am Sometimes forwarded them, but not always. ====================================================== NAUGHTY CANADA - ONE MORE REASON TO EMIGRATE IF IT WASN'T SO DAMN COLD ; Canada's View on Social Issues Is Opening Rifts With the U.S. Http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/international/americas/02CANA.html By CLIFFORD KRAUSS TORONTO, Dec. 1 Canadians and Americans still dress alike, talk alike, like the same books, television shows and movies, and trade more goods and services than ever before. But from gay marriage to drug use to church attendance, a chasm has opened up on social issues that go to the heart of fundamental values. A more distinctive Canadian identity one far more in line with European sensibilities is emerging and generating new frictions with the United States. "Being attached to America these days is like being in a pen with a wounded bull," Rick Mercer, Canada's leading political satirist, said at a recent show in Toronto. "Between the pot smoking and the gay marriage, quite frankly it's a wonder there is not a giant deck of cards out there with all our faces on it." Mr. Mercer acknowledged in an interview that he was overstating the case for laughs two Canadian provinces have legalized gay marriage, and Ottawa has moved to decriminalize use of small amounts of marijuana. But in the view of many experts the two countries are heading in different directions, at least for the time being. Recent disagreements over trade, drugs and the war in Iraq, where Canada has refused to send troops, has made the relationship more contentious and Canadians increasingly outspoken about the things that separate them from their American neighbors. "The two countries are sounding more different after 9/11, dramatically more different," noted Gil Troy, an American historian who teaches at McGill University in Montreal. "You hear a lot more static and you see more brittleness." Of course there have been frictions before, for instance during the Vietnam War, when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau welcomed American draft evaders, but the differences in those years were more political than social. Analysts say that Canada and the United States have always been similar yet different, and that the differences are often accentuated at the margins. But today, many analysts and ordinary Canadians said in interviews around the country, the differences appear to have moved center stage, particularly in social and cultural values. The nations remain like-minded in pockets, but the center of gravity in each has changed. French-speaking Quebec, with nearly a quarter of the population and its open social attitudes, pulls Canada to the left, just as the South and Bible Belt increasingly pull the United States in the opposite direction, particularly on issues like abortion, gay marriage and capital punishment. None of those have resonated much over the last decade in Canada, where the consensus on social policy seems more solidly formed, its fissures narrower and less exploitable. Chris Ragan, a McGill University economist, observed: "You can be a social conservative in the U.S. without being a wacko. Not in Canada." Drugs are one point of departure. A bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana is working its way through the lower house of Parliament, bringing threats from the White House that such a law could slow trade at the border. Recently, while musing about his retirement plans, Prime Minister Jean Chrtien said he might just kick back and smoke some pot. "I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand," he said with a smile. The glibness of the remark made it nearly impossible to imagine an American president uttering it. But in a nation where the dominant west coast city, Vancouver, has come to be known as Vansterdam, few Canadians blinked. When Massachusetts's highest court ruled for gay marriage, the issue loomed over American politics. Conservatives vowed to change the Constitution. President Bush said he would defend marriage. Even the major Democratic presidential candidates backed away from supporting gay marriage outright. Contrast that with Canada, where two provincial courts issued similar rulings this year. With little anguish, Canada became only the third country after the Netherlands and Belgium to allow same-sex marriage as a matter of civil rights. (Page 2 of 2) Canadians themselves are not wholly united on the issue. Most elderly and rural Canadians express reservations, and the Canadian Anglican Church is almost as divided over homosexuality as the American Episcopal Church. Still, Canadians remain tolerant of the shift. More than 1,500 gay and lesbian couples have married since the court rulings. "The Canadian reaction to same-sex marriage has been mostly positive," said Neil Bissoondath, an acclaimed Trinidadian-born Canadian novelist and social critic. But the same issue in the United States "has upset the fundamentalist Christians who drive a lot of the politics in the country, especially with the present administration in power," Mr. Bissoondath added. Rachel Brickner, 29, a political science graduate student at McGill originally from Detroit, said that despite her own liberal views, she sometimes tired of the anti-Americanism she encountered among Canadian students. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, she said, an old roommate told her that "the U.S. deserved 9/11 because we're bullies." "Canadians are quick to blame the United States for not knowing about Canada," she said, "but Canadians make a lot of ignorant statements about the U.S." No Canadian city reveals differences as much as Vancouver. It looks like any American city, except for a drug culture that is so abundantly open. The police rarely interfere with bars, storefronts and even offices where people can buy or smoke marijuana. A "compassion club" distributes marijuana legally to cancer patients and others who have doctors' notes. The city opened a publicly financed and supervised injection site for heroin users in September. The federal government, meanwhile, is preparing to start an experimental heroin distribution program for addicts in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in 2004. The changes in marriage and drug laws, said Michael Adams, a Toronto consultant and polling expert, "means Canada is moving in the opposite direction with the United States and closer to Europe." In his new book "Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values," he argues that greater Canadian tolerance reflects a fundamental difference in outlook about everthing from the ethnic and linguistic diversity of immigrants to the relative status of the sexes. Mr. Adams notes that weekly church attendance among Canadians has plummeted since the 1950's while American church attendance has remained virtually constant. To many commentators the two countries seem to be exchanging their traditional roles, one founded in America's birth as a revolutionary country and Canada's as a counterrevolutionary alternative. During the Depression, under the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United States was the progressive force, while Canada stubbornly held on to conservative economic policies. By the mid-1960's, though, Canada shifted to a far more activist government, moving to a national health insurance system. Not long afterward, the Vietnam War began siphoning popularity from the Great Society experiment of President Johnson. The trends have only widened since. Not all analysts see a big, lasting divergence. Some like Peter Jennings, the ABC News broadcaster who was born in Toronto and became a dual American and Canadian citizen in May, believe that Canadians have actually drawn closer to Americans. Nevertheless, Mr. Jennings said Canada had become "a socially more relaxed kind of place." "Canada, as it is with some of the European countries," he added, "is trying to balance some of the market forces with public policy, which is not as apparent in the United States, where the pursuit of happiness and individualism are very much alive." Still, a cultural gulf is widening. "In the 70's we were taught Canada would be absorbed by the United States, and in the 80's it looked like it was happening," recalled Douglas Coupland, the Canadian author known for his cultural commentaries on both sides of the border. "Then came the latter part of the 90's and it was like some high school class 16-millimeter film where you see the chromosome duplicates, then realigns, and finally the cell splits. "And that process only seems to be quickening in recent months." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company ====================================================== PLEASE PAY FOR THE SUBSCRIPTION TO SUPPORT OUR CAUSE - $15/YR MINIMUM, MORE IF YOU FEEL THIS IS IMPORTANT WORK. James Mooney PMB # 106 4495-304 Roosevelt Blvd Jacksonville, FL 32210-3381 OR Via Paypal at: https://www.paypal.com/affil/pal=cybervigil@earthlink.net Wise saying goes here when I think of one ;') Jim Mooney, webmaster: www.micethatroar.com www.corporatecrimefighters.com UNUM'S SECRET "DESTROYED" CLAIMS MANUALS NOW AVAILABLE - Email manuals@micethatroar.com for details. Newsletter Archives are at: http://www.corporatecrimefighters.com/html/newsletter_archives.html |
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